It is quite common at athletic events and other events which draw large crowds for vendors selling or dispensing hot and cold beverages to circulate among the people. For example during sporting events, such as baseball and football games, it is common for vendors to carry containers of soda, beer, coffee, hot chocolate, etc. for sale to the fans. This has proven to be a cumbersome and relatively expensive means of distributing beverages.
There also have been numerous suggestions in the prior art of providing portable beverage dispensers having tanks from which a beverage to be dispensed is retained, and from which the beverage is directed, through a dispensing nozzle, and into a paper or plastic cup. Although applicant believes that the use of portable dispensers for dispensing beverages from a tank is the preferable way to dispense such beverages, the prior art systems do not appear to have met with any significant commercial success.
A number of prior art portable beverage dispensers also include a cup dispenser as part of their construction. Representative beverage dispensers of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,673,007 (Kaiser); 2,105,339 (Sweitzer); 2,350,184 (Oys); 2,558,181 (Cassel); 2,704,627 (Brulin et al.) and 3,286,884 (Long, Jr.).
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,147,889 (Dolgin) and 2,732,977 (Charpiat), in addition to some of the above-identified patents, disclose systems for introducing a pressurizing gas into the beverage to be dispensed. The Dolgin '889 patent discloses a beverage dispenser which employs a horizontally oriented hand pump to pressurize a beverage tank which is retained within an outer housing. In the Dolgin dispenser the beverage to be dispensed is directed through a discharge passage in the beverage tank, which is located in the same wall as the pressurizing passage through which pressurizing air is introduced.
Other prior art portable beverage dispensers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,684,787 (Charpiat) and 2,808,965 (Graphia III, et al.).
It is applicant's belief that none of the above prior art systems have received commercial recognition because they either are too expensive to construct, or are not sufficiently versatile or reliable.